Rethinking Huayan ethics: Tathāgatagarbha, morality in Huayan thought, and its application to AI ethics

During the Tang dynasty in China, the Huayan tradition experienced a significant revival, developing and advancing the philosophical characteristics of Tathāgatagarbha thought, thereby forming a major stream within Chinese Buddhism. This tradition continues to be a subject of academic and religious interest in East Asian countries today. Huayan Patriarchs from Dushun to Zongmi generally regarded the cultivation of wisdom and the practice of altruism as the twin pillars of the Huayan tradition. Despite the long history of accumulated discourses and their deep philosophical and religious significance, the practical and ethical aspect of the Huayan tradition seems to have attracted relatively less attention. This study begins by exploring why Huayan ethics and its philosophical characteristics have not received sufficient attention, aiming to elucidate a systematic structure of Huayan ethical theory through analyses from metaethical and normative ethical perspectives. The study identifies three misconceptions that complicate an ethical approach to Huayan and the underlying Tathāgatagarbha thought: 1) A transcendentalist interpretation that regards the concepts of good and evil in the Chinese Mahāyāna tradition as merely relative dichotomies while emphasizing their transcendence. 2) Misunderstandings about the notion of True Self as the source of morality. 3) The conflation of Tathāgatagarbha and Huayan thoughts. Each of these misconceptions forms the subject of individual chapters of this study. Through philosophical clarification, this study reveals the unique ethical structure and characteristics of the Huayan tradition, distinct from Indian Buddhist traditions and other Mahāyāna schools. The delineated ethical structure of Huayan upholds the moral value of universal good and the foundation for altruistic practice through the notion of Tathāgatagarbha, establishes principles for resolving issues of personal identity and consistent practice through the concept of True Self, and finally, validates its philosophical uniqueness and lays the groundwork for applied ethics through the principle of dependent origination in the Dharma realm, that is, Fajie yuanqi (法界緣起). The last section of this study explores how the ethical structure of Huayan can move beyond being a relic of the past to offer a useful theoretical framework for the burgeoning field of AI ethics, as part of an exploration into its applied ethical potential in contemporary philosophical discourses.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

East Asian Languages and Cultures

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2024

Author dc:creator

• Song, Jinsub

Contributors dc:contributor

• Chow, Kai-Wing
• Mayer, Alexander L
• Varden, Helga
• Callahan, Christopher T

• Huayan Buddhism
• Buddhist Ethics
• Tathāgatagarbha
• Ai Ethics

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2024 Jinsub Song

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/125584

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F125584